A widely practiced yet deeply superstitious and idolatrous custom among believers is the kurban (sacrifice). The kurban performed during the consecration of a house, where the foundation is sprinkled with the blood of a slaughtered animal, and its head is placed within the foundation, is nothing short of a demonic act. Through such a sacrilegious ritual, one invites the devil into their own home. On the other hand, a kurban offered during a church feast can be either beneficial or detrimental, depending on the intent behind it.
If the kurban is prepared and shared to nourish guests who often travel from afar to attend the church feast, with the primary motivation being brotherly love and hospitality, then it can be considered good. However, care must be taken not to perform it on a Wednesday or Friday, or during a fasting period. Even in monasteries, the slaughtering of a kurban is forbidden, as according to Church tradition and monastic rules, meat is not consumed in monasteries. If the kurban is slaughtered with the intent of offering a sacrifice to God for health and success, or for protection from misfortunes, such an act is magical and idolatrous, and is not in line with the teachings and traditions of the Orthodox Church. If the prescribed fast by the Holy Church is also broken (such as slaughtering and eating the kurban on a Wednesday, Friday, or another fasting day), then the sin is even greater.
God the Father accepts only one sacrifice, which is the sacrificial death of His only-begotten Son on the Cross, offered for the salvation of every person—a complete and perfect sacrifice.
Our participation in this once-for-all-time offered sacrifice is realized in the Holy Liturgy of the Church, through the continual offering of our rational and bloodless sacrifice (the Holy Gifts) and through Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ. Our fasting, prayer, love for God and for every person—this is the sacrifice that God primarily seeks from all of us and which we offer in the Holy Gifts, finding its true meaning only in our communion with the Holy Mysteries. The Holy Liturgy (Eucharist) of the Church is the source, fullness, and measure of our faith and our entire life. Therefore, in the Orthodox Church, we never offer blood sacrifices to God; we do not offer another’s blood, as doing so would show that we despise the sacrifice of His only-begotten Son, committing a great sin. The only blood sacrifice that would be pleasing to God is our own blood, offered in defense of the Orthodox faith and Church. Another demonic custom often associated with the kurban is the cutting of the ear of the sacrificed animal (lamb), circling the lamb around the church, bringing it inside, offering it to bow and kiss the icon, and more…
If we do not fulfill the law of Christ, we are not Christians… For if we suffer for Christ, we should at least listen to what He tells us. He does not ask us to do anything difficult, but something easy. He tells us to love one another, to forgive, to comfort, to be careful, not to act like wild children, not to get drunk, not to indulge in immorality, not to drink wine excessively, and not to dance mindlessly as the foolish do.
Yet, we even celebrate the feast that we observe once a year in an unseemly manner, not in piety. On that very day, we seek to get drunk, to dance, to lose control. We sit up all night, drink, and lose ourselves, not praying to the saint but angering him, so that he does not intercede for us before God and does not help us, making all our efforts in vain…
But you might say… we don’t know how it should be done. That’s how we found it, that’s how we’ll leave it. No, brother, don’t remain as you are; instead, turn away from evil and do good… If you can’t do anything according to the law, at least don’t do unlawful things. Sit with the fear of God and say: On this day, all Christians stand in the law, pray to God, and praise Him in the churches and the houses of God, but we are deprived of all that. And pray to God with tears, saying: Deliver us, O God, from this wicked custom we have and teach us, Lord, Your truth, and guide our steps to fulfill Your commandments.
Yet you hope in the kurbans you slaughter… thinking that by this you please God. Don’t you know that these kurbans are an idolatrous sacrifice, a Jewish sacrifice, not a Christian one? The Christian who slaughters a kurban is not a Christian but a Jew or an idolater, and the priest who serves with a lit candle over the ram’s head (kurban), deceives only for profit, for money, for meat, because nowhere in the Christian law is it written that a priest should serve over a ram, nor that a Christian should slaughter a kurban.
Christians, do not slaughter blood sacrifices, for we have a bloodless one. See what the Holy Spirit says through the mouth of the prophet David in the 49th Psalm, verse 13: “Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High.” And He says: “I will not accept a bull from your house, nor goats out of your folds”… The kurban remained from Abraham, but the prosphora and wine remained from Melchizedek. And see who is greater? See how God sent Abraham to be blessed by Melchizedek because he was the priest of the Most High God, and his offering was very pleasing before God because it was of bread and wine, not of flesh and blood like Abraham’s…
You see, Christians, how great a sin it is to slaughter kurbans. Yet you hope to gain mercy from God and the saint and to be healed from illnesses. But God says: I do not want you to slaughter; I do not drink blood nor eat flesh. But you slaughter with the priest and say: We send the kurban to God. And the priest who does not tell you the truth but out of greed for money even deceives you, saying: It’s okay, do as you have found it. But if he teaches you wrongly, the great sin is upon him, for both priesthood and Christianity have departed from him, and woe to the parish where he serves, and woe, great woe, and bitterness to his soul!
For priests who engage in kurban and other demonic practices, the 36th Canon of the Council of Laodicea states:
“Since it is a betrayal of the faith, such a priest should be excluded from the Church, for by engaging in such acts, he has turned from being a servant of the Eternal God to a servant of the devil.” There are also other similar matters to which an Orthodox priest should be vigilant and enlighten the people. To prevent, not to participate in, such things, thereby losing his soul.
Superstition is one of the manifestations of a magical approach to life. A person inexperienced in spiritual life easily accepts demonic thoughts and distorted teachings, and by agreeing with them, falls under the influence of the devil. For example: young people are afraid to get married in a leap year but are not afraid that by avoiding the leap year, they violate the Nativity Fast. Thus, people pay attention to leap years, full moons, black cats, unlucky numbers, and whatnot. Some wait during a memorial service or on Pentecost to see the face of the deceased in the wine. And moreover, an entire system of prohibitions is established (do not touch, do not respect, do not step on, do not kiss, do not say, do not look back, do not meet and more), a life contrary to healthy spirituality and piety. Superstition arises where there is no true, healthy faith and devout life.
One of the manifestations of unhealthy “spiritual” life includes horoscopes and summoning spirits, things I often hear about in the Holy Sacrament of Confession.
Christians, my brothers, let us prepare spiritually, not physically; thus prepared, let us confess to our spiritual father, for the spiritual father has the authority and blessing from Christ God; so that the sins committed every hour, which we forget and do not remember, can be confessed to the spiritual father, to be forgiven with the absolution prayer read by the confessor, so that on Easter you can worthily receive Communion, worthily celebrate, worthily rejoice, worthily and spiritually be glad…
And finally, let us conclude that people who visit charmers and seers, offer kurbans, believe in superstitions, are being filled with another spirit, and often fall into a state of disobedience to their bishop, and outside the grace-filled communion with him, there is no Church, no pious life, nor salvation.
